The man they built

You ever notice how every saint in a picture got clean hands?
Funny…
Mine never stayed that way.

I learned real young that a house ain’t always a home,
Sometimes it’s just four walls arguing over which one gets to keep the ghost.
So I stopped unpacking.
People call that “being distant”…
Nah…
I was just tired of decorating places that were already planning my funeral.

See…
Everybody loves telling you
“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

Bullshit.

Sometimes it doesn’t make you stronger.
Sometimes it teaches you how to smile while you’re bleeding
so nobody asks inconvenient questions.

And damn…
I got really fucking good at smiling.

I became the funny guy.
Because nobody checks on the comedian.
Everybody remembers the punchline.
Nobody remembers the guy writing it at three in the morning
wondering why silence is louder than applause.

Funny…
The wolves always knew where to find me.
Maybe kindness has a smell.
Maybe monsters don’t hunt weakness…
Maybe they hunt people who still believe.

I spent years confusing poison for peace.
Bought temporary heaven with permanent consequences.
You’d call it addiction.
I call it renting silence from a landlord that never gave deposits back.

Then one day…

The mirror stopped introducing itself.

That was interesting.

Because I realized
the person staring back
wasn’t the boy everybody buried.

It was the thing they accidentally built.

Brick.
By brick.
By fucking brick.

Every betrayal…
another bone.

Every lie…
another tooth.

Every fist…
another layer of skin.

Congratulations.

You finally made somebody
who doesn’t break where you expected.

You know what scares people?

Not revenge.

Predictable revenge is easy.

Justice…
that’s patient.

Justice doesn’t scream.

Justice waits.

It learns your language,
memorizes your habits,
holds the fucking door for you…

and watches you become exactly what you swore you’d never be.

I’ve been called cold.

Cold?

No…

Cold people stop caring.

I still care enough
to tell you the truth
even when it costs me everyone in the room.

That’s the difference.

You chase acceptance.

I chase accuracy.

You collect faces.

I collect patterns.

You hear words.

I watch pupils.
Hands.
Breathing.
The half-second before someone lies.

Funny thing…

People hate mirrors.

Especially the ones
that don’t distort.

So they called me angry.

Nah.

Anger burns fast.

What you hear now…

is thirty years
compressed into pressure.

Pressure doesn’t explode because it’s emotional.

It explodes
because physics eventually wins.

You wanna know why I make music?

Because words spoken disappear.

Words screamed…

leave fingerprints.

And maybe…
just maybe…

some kid sitting alone
with headphones too big for his head

is gonna hear this…

and realize…

he isn’t broken.

He’s under construction.

…

So keep your crowns.

Keep your applause.

Keep your fake fucking kingdoms.

I don’t want your throne.

I want the microphone.

Because kingdoms collapse.

Ideas don’t.

…

You didn’t create a monster.

You created proof.

Proof…

that a human being
can survive
everything
you were absolutely certain
would kill him.

…

Now…

watch…

what the fuck…

you built.